This episode of the podcast contains explicit language.

Hey everyone, welcome to the 37th episode of our Civil War podcast. My name is Rich.

And I'm Tracy. Hello, y'all. Thanks for tuning into the podcast. In the last show,

we talked about the second wave of secession after President Lincoln issued a proclamation,

calling for the states to furnish 75,000 militia to put down the rebellion.

With that second wave of secession, the nation's capital, Washington DC,

found itself in a perilous position with Virginia just across the Potomac River

and surrounded on the other three sides by the still wavering slave state of Maryland.

Obviously, Maryland's geographic location made the state's situation

a matter of immediate and direct concern for the Lincoln administration,

especially since Maryland had always fashioned a distinctly southern image for itself.

And the city of Baltimore took inordinate pride in its pro-Southern sympathies.

And then, particularly in the Maryland counties on the eastern shore,

where slavery was most prevalent, those counties were like a northern outpost of the deep south.

And so, for several weeks in April 1861, the prospects for the union cause in Maryland did not look good.

This situation caused no small amount of alarm and anxiety in Washington,

since Maryland's loss would strand the capital well inside hostile territory.

Maryland's initial unfavorable reaction to Lincoln's proclamation produced anxiety in Washington

since the state controlled the only railroad access to the capital from the north.

That meant any troops from loyal northern states on their way to reinforce the endangered capital

would have to pass through Maryland.

And those reinforcements were desperately needed since at the outbreak of the war,

...